Research reveals worrying trends for gap year students

With exam results announced last week, A-level students everywhere will be wondering how to spend their gap years. While many devote their time to finding the perfect trip, it seems that there are a significant proportion of would-be travellers who give little thought to their personal safety.

ACE European Group Ltd - provider of specialist gap year cover through ACE Traveller Insurance, has unearthed some worrying trends regarding policies sold so far this year.

Findings reveal that almost half of travellers taking out ACE policies purchased them one week prior to travel with over 10% of all policies sold for July 07 taken out one day before travelling.

ACE’s statistics also showed that women aged 18-24 take out travel insurance on average 24 days before their date of travel, compared with 19 days before travel for male 18-24 year olds, making girls better planners than their male counterparts.

Ges Lonsdale, Business Development Manager at ACE explains more about these findings:

“It’s concerning that almost half of all ACE policy holders don’t take out insurance until a week before they travel. It’s almost certain that, by this late stage, travellers will be committed to a range of costs which would not be recoverable. As cancellation cover only begins when you buy a policy, I would urge travellers to think about getting insured as soon as they have paid anything more than small deposits for their gap year.

“With an estimated 500,000 people embarking on gap year travels each year, these figures suggest that a quarter of a million gappers aren’t giving any thought to their personal safety abroad until less than 7 days before they jump on plane.”

ACE’s most popular policies are for Worldwide cover excluding USA, Canada and the Caribbean representing 57% of all ACE policies sold for travellers aged 18-24.

Ges continues: “Travellers are prepared to go further afield and prefer the flexibility of a worldwide policy. Australia and Europe, although common destinations, are now increasingly part of a more extensive tour.”

ACE Traveller offers competitively priced, tailored insurance for travellers and as part of its package has three unique benefits:

• Cover for 240 different sports and activities at no extra cost
• Search and rescue cover
• Free security information from ACE’s partner, red24

“It’s worrying how many young people disregard travel insurance when they go on their gap year. When you consider the cost of taking out insurance with ACE, compared to the cost incurred should something go wrong, it’s a no-brainer.

“ACE Traveller is specially tailored to allow people to take risks and have adventures on their travels, and the search and rescue cover and security advice from red24 are added safety measures which could be invaluable while travelling.”

For more information, visit Acetravellerinsurance.com.